The present invention relates to a video recorder/player, especially a video recorder/player using an optical disc as a recording medium. The recording density of optical disc has been increased remarkably. For example, a 12 cm diameter DVD-ROM (type of read-only small optical disc) has a 4.7 GB storage capacity for a single side. A DVD-R (type of recordable small optical disc), which can record data one time into each track, has a 3.9 GB storage capacity for a single side. Further, a DVD-RAM (type of rewritable small optical disc), which can record data many times in each track has a 2.6 GB storage capacity for a single side.
An image compression technique, which reduces the size of video data with little data loss, also has been developed. Especially, an implementation of the MPEG2 image-encoding algorithm by the Moving Picture Experts Group has enabled the production of a video display with a sufficient picture quality at a low rate of 4-5Mbps. As a result, DVD video players using a 4.7 GB storage capacity DVD-ROM disc, which can record 2 or more hours of video images, is now available on the market.
For the video data that is stored and reproduced by a disc, a directory format have been formulated as a DVD standard. Therefore, for a video player based on the DVD standard, video data recorded in other than the standard format could not be reproduced, and video data encoded in a non-standard format could not be decoded with a standard DVD player.